The Virgin Rule Book (Rules of Love 1)

by Lauren Blakely

  Holden arches a doubtful brow. “Nadia is a hanging curveball?”

  Grant scratches his jaw. “Not sure that’s right. Hanging curveballs are your temptation. You can’t resist them. You swing at them every time.”

  “And I hit them,” I say. “I swing at hanging curveballs because I can motherfucking hit them over the fence and into the San Francisco Bay.” I pump a fist. “Booyah. Who hit a homer all the way over the bleacher seats and into the Bay last year?” That shit is hard to do, and I pulled it off.

  Grant taps his chest. “Did you forget that I hit one out there too?”

  I clear my throat. “Listen, this is not an issue. There is nothing to worry about. Nadia and I are friends, and we have been forever. I’m hanging out with her. We’re having a nice time. I’m in time-out. She’s in time-out,” I say, a little worked up because how are they not getting it? How do they not see the obvious? “Therefore, nothing can happen between us.” I flap my arm outside the room in the general direction of Nadia, then back at myself. I smooth a hand down my jacket. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I have a reception to go to.”

  I leave, joining Nadia at the table. She smells so damn good, but I am not giving into the temptation.

  I’ve got this.

  8

  Crosby

  I blame chia seeds.

  And kale.

  Blueberries are definitely responsible too. They made me the organic monster I am when it comes to food.

  My mom, though, is the biggest reason, since she fed me all that before I could walk. She was and is the queen of all things organic, and started her own organic café in San Rafael when I was in grade school.

  When the waiter swings by with the chicken entrée, my knee-jerk reaction is to ask the usual question. “Is the chicken organic?”

  With a light bow of his head, he answers, “Yes, it is, sir.”

  As he deposits the plates in front of the other guests, Nadia pats my shoulder. “You’re safe here, Crosby. We know you and your mango-loving heart.”

  “Mangoes and me are like that,” I say, crossing my index and middle finger. “Anyway, old habits,” I say with a shrug and a smile, because this is what I’m talking about—Nadia and I know each other, down to our families and the nitty-gritty of our food preferences.

  Nadia tips her forehead in the direction of my mom, a few tables away, her curly red hair falling down her back.

  “How is Sunny?” she asks.

  My mom is parked next to Nadia’s mom, listening to her intently.

  That’s my mom. The only way she knows how to listen is intently.

  The universe gave us one mouth and two ears, she likes to say.

  “She and Kana opened a ninth location of Green Goddess,” I say, then gesture to the woman next to my mom, a regal-looking lady hailing from Japan, with sleek black hair. They’ve been a thing for a few years now, and they’re holding hands at the table. “And it’s going well.”

  “And that’s going well too, I take it?” Her tone says she’s asking about my mom’s romantic interest.

  Seeing my mom happy again ignites a smile on my face and warmth in my chest. “Oh yeah. Big time. I keep telling Sunny to lock that down, but she insists, ‘Everything happens according to its own lunar calendar,’” I say, imitating my mom and her soothing tone for dispensing adages.

  The thing she loves to serve up most, right along with kale and quinoa.

  “That sounds exactly like your mom. She has a mantra for everything,” Nadia says after taking a bite of her chicken dish.

  “She does. And it absolutely rubbed off on me. I’m a big fan of mantras,” I say, because mantras are seeing me through this lady diet right now. On that note, maybe I should start thinking of Nadia as sugar. And cake. And cookies.

  All the verboten treats that won’t touch my lips.

  Resist cookies. Resist Nadia.

  There. Perfect.

  She lifts her wineglass and takes a drink, her brow knitting as if she’s deep in thought. “Is it hard getting used to her with someone else?”

  I shake my head. “Nah, she’s happy. Honestly, she’s just as happy as when she was with my dad,” I say, since my mom’s always been an affectionate person. She was that way with my dad before he died when I was in college after a quick battle with pancreatic cancer.

  “Did it surprise you? That she’d fallen in love with a woman?”

  I flash back to the night Mom told my sister and me. In her usual fashion, Sunny was up-front, straightforward. She didn’t clear her throat and say, I have an announcement to make. She simply took Haley and me out for dinner after an afternoon game and told us that she’d fallen for Kana, and was happy that Aphrodite had smiled on her again.

  “Maybe for about two seconds,” I say. “But when Sunny said she was pansexual, it just tracked.”

  Nadia smiles as she spears another piece of the yardbird. “I can see that about her. Knowing how she is with people and how she’s always seemed more attracted to hearts than anything else.”

  “Exactly,” I say, digging that Nadia gets it in a way few others have. When Daria met Sunny last year, she couldn’t fathom that my mom had been with my dad for a couple decades before falling for a woman. Daria’s not the only girlfriend I’ve had whose expression went all furrowed and confused when they met Sunny. “That was what Haley and I said to each other the night Sunny told us. We kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Yep, that makes perfect sense. Pass the blueberries.’” I take a bite of the chicken, chew, then ask, “What about you?”

  Nadia brings a hand to her chest, her brow knitting in confusion. “Am I pansexual?”

  I laugh, shaking my head. Then I think better of it. “Are you? I guess I sort of assumed from our conversation earlier that you weren’t, but maybe you are. I try to operate under the assumption that I don’t assume anyone’s orientation at all—it’s not up to me to try to glean who people love.”

  She shakes her head. “I like men, despite the few sons of mailboxes.”

  “The douches,” I say, since she won’t. “Or as you might say, the duckweeds.”

  A smile spreads nice and easy across her face. “You’ve got it.”

  “So you’re really done with men?”

  “Confession time,” she says in a whisper. “I tried a matchmaker in Vegas, and it was a disaster. We’re talking category five hurricane level.”

  “Does that mean you were caught in the eye of a storm of men?”

  Laughing, she shakes her head. “Maybe that was the wrong analogy. More like a black hole. The vacuum of deep space. She couldn’t really find anyone for me,” she says, with a what can you do sigh.

  But that shocks the hell out of me. No sighing here. Just a drop of the jaw. “Men ought to be falling all over themselves to get to you.”

  “I wish I could tell you I was tripping over a long line of men,” she says. “It was more like a Tampa Bay baseball game,” she says, and I laugh at the comparison to the team with the worst attendance in the Majors. We’re talking rows upon rows of empty seats.

  “Why on earth would they not want to be set up with you?”

  Nadia takes a sip of wine. “Let’s just say they were more interested in their own ability to buy tickets for a fancy suite at the football game than going on a date with the owner.”

  Shock rings through me.

  What the hell is wrong with some people? “That doesn’t even compute in my world. My dad was an easygoing dude who took a few years off to raise us when Mom was building her business, then he went back to his accounting practice. And my mom’s always just been open-minded about everything.”

  Nadia nudges my arm with her elbow, tossing me an appreciative smile. “And they rubbed off on you.” Then she smiles. “But honestly, it doesn’t matter. Maybe in the end I was meant to come to San Francisco and be single.”

  Maybe she was.

  Maybe I like that plan.

  Because it’s easier to hang out wit
h her, I mean.

  And hell, it’s good that she’s as on board with her singletude as I am with mine.

  “You think the universe was doing you a favor?” I ask.

  “I have so much to focus on with building the team, and I want that to be my priority. Maybe that’s why the matchmaker couldn’t find anyone for me. Perhaps it was meant to be like this,” she says, sweeping her arm out widely to indicate the reception, and maybe this moment too, her and me, hanging out.

  Whether it was the universe or bad luck, who knows?

  However you slice this night, I’m glad to be here with her, and I want her to know that. She beats me to the punch when she says, “By the way, it’s nice to catch up with you.”

  The grin she flashes me throws me off-kilter for a few seconds. It makes me want to touch her arm, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and whisper, Same.

  I do one of those three.

  “Same,” I tell her. “Same here.”

  9

  Nadia

  I love champagne.

  It makes me feel so . . . floaty.

  So effervescent.

  Like everything is coated in a warm, delicious glow.

  Glows are great. Absolutely, officially great.

  I would like to commission a glow to surround me wherever I go.

  Tonight I’m glowing after the ceremony, after the toasts, after the cake that Crosby didn’t touch, of course.

  After the moment in the hallway earlier, when he roamed his nose over my neck, like he was drinking in my smell, and then after that fantastic get-to-know-you-even-better chat at the table.

  Now we’re dancing, along with the rest of the wedding party.

  “You promised stories. I need the tales,” I say.

  He arches a brow. “Are you sure you can handle them?”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I love anti-fairy tales.”

  “That’s all I’ve got when it comes to romance,” he says, spinning me in a circle, then bringing me close again, but not plastered-up-against-each-other close. The music is fast enough to shimmy, but slow enough for me to keep my hands on his shoulders.

  Translation: we aren’t doing that melt-into-each-other slow dance.

  His lips curve up in that delicious lopsided grin that he wears so well. That easygoing, lighthearted one. “Let’s start with Alabama.”

  “As in the state?”

  “As in the name.”

  “Her name was Alabama?”

  “Yes indeed. Alabama Venus.”

  I grin. “Where did you meet Alabama Venus? Kinda sounds like a stripper name,” I say, then shake my head, thinking better of it. I bring my fingers to my lips, like I’m shushing myself. “Pretend I didn’t say that,” I whisper.

  His blue eyes twinkle with delight. “Oh, you said it, Wild Girl. I heard it. And I sure hope you’re not insinuating that only strippers are named after states. Or that there’s anything wrong with dating a stripper.”

  I slap his shoulder playfully. “I have zero issues with stripping. In fact, I’ll have you know that I led a campaign to make sure that strip club workers qualified for health insurance in Las Vegas.”

  “Whoa, look at you, Miss Progressive.”

  “But the name does sound . . . deliberately sexy,” I explain as we twirl past other couples on the dance floor, including my brother, who gives us those I’m watching you eyes, like Robert De Niro gave Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents.

  Crosby and I both laugh at the groom.

  Friends, I mouth.

  Buddies, Crosby adds.

  It feels true enough for now.

  “Yes, her name does sound overtly sexy,” Crosby says. “And I suppose she had stripper tendencies, as you’ll learn, but she was actually a fortune-teller.”

  A laugh bursts from me. “Did you ask her to look into your crystal . . . balls?”

  The twinkle in his eye turns into a naughty gleam. “Keep this up. I like this risqué side of you.”

  Funny thing is, I do too.

  I can say things to Crosby that I don’t normally say to men. Maybe because I haven’t had the chance, since my dating life has been anemic—going to an all-girls college, then heading straight into a master’s program where all you do is study, study, study, can do that to a woman who digs men.

  But perhaps it’s the champagne loosening my lips.

  The other option is . . . it’s him.

  “Maybe you bring it out in me,” I suggest, a touch flirty.

  “I’ll do my best to . . . keep it up,” he says, wiggling his brows, making me grin. “And to answer your question, I met Alabama Venus at Whole Foods.”

  I snort-laugh. “Wait, wait! Were you fighting over who got the last basket of organic raspberries?”

  “I guess you do have a crystal ball,” he says, then dives into the story. “She was an organic food fiend too. Maybe not the best of commonalities, but there it was. We dated for a while. Seemed to be going well enough. So we went to Cabo, and one night she wanted to go dancing. We went to a club, and we danced our asses off.”

  Perhaps powered by the “risqué” comment, I jerk back, one hand sliding off his shoulder and landing on his hip, so I can give his rear a quick once-over. Sneaking a peek at his butt, I remark, “It’s still here. Did you lose your rear in Cabo then get it back?”

  He wiggles a brow. “I had a butt transplant.”

  I laugh, and as I do, my hand seems to have a mind of its own. Emboldened by champagne, or the wedding, or Crosby’s stories.

  What if my palm just grazed his rear?

  Just a little.

  That’s all.

  We’re on the far corner of the dance floor, his backside out of view of the crowd.

  And my hand is on his hip. I can sort of slide it down a little lower.

  The she-devil in me wins, my hand skimming the top of one firm, squeezable cheek.

  His eyes widen as my hand travels lower, then lower still.

  Oh, thank you, champagne.

  I’m feeling floaty indeed.

  His eyes darken, a flicker of desire in them, chased with that teasing glint. “Nadia, are you checking out my butt transplant?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound like he’s busting me.

  More like he’s . . . inviting me.

  Still, heat flushes across my cheeks. I tug my hand away, raising it again to curl over his shoulder. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. It was sort of an accidental squeeze, powered by champagne and dancing,” I say, tripping over my apology.

  Ugh, that’s a lie.

  I hate lying.

  It was not accidental.

  It was deliberate and deliberately sneaky.

  His voice dips low, a rough whisper just for me. “Was it? Accidental?”

  His sexy tone sends a flare of sparks through my chest. A shiver that makes my whole body tingle.

  “Or maybe it was . . . curiosity?” I posit, a little breathy.

  “By all means, indulge your curiosity,” he murmurs.

  My breathing quickens, rushing from my lungs in an unexpected burst that sends prickles of heat along my skin.

  “This isn’t my normal MO,” I whisper, coming close, but not too close, to my virginity confession. Crosby doesn’t know I’ve never had sex. I don’t blast that little fact on a billboard. But the least I can do is let him know that I’m not a regular butt squeezer. “Just wanted you to know that. I don’t go around accidentally squeezing butts. Or deliberately.”

  He takes a moment, licking the corner of his lips. “All the more reason to check it out. Deliberately,” he says, so warm and sexy on that last word.

  Sneaking a glance behind me to confirm the rest of the guests are caught up in their own world, I snake my hand down to his butt once more.

  Cover his firm cheek with my hand.

  My insides handspring. My pulse spikes.

  His butt feels fantastic.

  I squeeze it harder, murmuring my appreciation.

  He rumbles his in return, a low growl
in his throat that lights me up. “Yeah, it’s better when it’s not accidental,” he says.

  “I have to agree,” I say, unsure how I’m forming words right now.

  Unsure, too, what happens next.

  Because the mood has shifted once again.

  But when the music switches to Ella Fitzgerald and a love song so swoony you have to sway with your lover, we separate.

  Untangling quickly.

  “Drink?” I ask, my voice feathery, uncertain. “After all, I need the rest of the dance-your-ass-off tale.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  We make our way to a bar in the other corner of the room, away from most of the festivities, and order two more champagnes.

  After the bartender serves us, we raise our glasses to toast. “To my wedding buddy,” I say.

  He smiles back. “And to mine.”

  We clink, and I feel mildly recalibrated.

  Only mildly.

  “So, Alabama the fortune-teller was a bit of an exhibitionist,” he says, returning to the tale. “And when we were dancing, ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ came on. She decided to take off all her clothes, right down to her red thong underwear.”

  My jaw drops. “Are you serious?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “I guess she did want to have fun.”

  “When I gave her my shirt to cover her up, that’s right when the cops came into the club, and they thought I was involved in her striptease.”

  I wince, a little nervous. “How did you get out of it?”

  “My teammates.”

  My brow furrows. “They were with you?”

  “Nope. But like most ballplayers, I have plenty of teammates who are Latino and speak Spanish. So I made it my mission over the last few years to learn the language. I talk to Juan, one of my starting pitchers in Spanish all the time. So when I was in Mexico, I gave my best effort in talking to the police, and I think they appreciated that. One of them said I should find a nice girl, not a crazy one.”

  “And what happened to the crazy one?”

  He makes a whooshing sound, his arm dipping in the universal sign for an airplane flying. “I flew her home that night. Literally got on the next plane with her, and then I caught a flight to Anchorage. I went whale watching the rest of our vacation. Solo.”